


Unexpected Roaming Charges

by mousapelli



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, World-hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21739447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousapelli/pseuds/mousapelli
Summary: Riku and Sora are finding out that going on a long trip together is unexpectedly stressful, but Sora knows phoning a friend for help is always helpful.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 200





	Unexpected Roaming Charges

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Joining of Unlike Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21315673) by [mousapelli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousapelli/pseuds/mousapelli). 



> Written for SoRiku Week 2019, Day 2: Distance. 
> 
> Loosely set after Joining of Unlike Things, at the start of Sora and Riku exploring space for new worlds.

Exploring space for new worlds with Riku was definitely an adjustment. It wasn't a bad adjustment, necessarily, and Sora didn't regret taking a hiatus from his training at the Land of Departure to come on Riku's next journey. The privacy sure was nice, for one thing, since they hadn't been alone for more than a couple hours or a night's sleep since they had confessed and gotten together officially. On the other hand, the Gummi ship was only so big, and it didn't take long for both of them to feel like they were always tripping over each other. Riku in particular wanted time to himself sometimes, and they had more than one argument over Sora interrupting Riku when he was trying to meditate.

"I just get so bored," Sora said sheepishly the third or fourth time it happened. 

"I'm not sure why you thought ages alone with me in the Gummi ship would be exciting!" Riku had commented, meaner than he meant to. Sora had narrowed his eyes and given Riku the silent treatment for hours, since he wanted quiet so much. He caved in around their usual bedtime, though, the idea of sleeping alone somewhere on the ship enough to send him crawling into the same bunk as Riku, full of apologies. 

"I'm sorry, too," Riku had answered immediately, hugging Sora to his chest just a little too tightly. 

At least making up after fighting was a lot more fun now that they were boyfriends. 

The first world they visited went really well, popping up on their radar after only a week. Sora, taking his turn as driver, had yelled with excitement for Riku to come see, and watching the planet grow bigger and bigger on the view screen with Riku's hand lying across his shoulders, Sora couldn't remember ever being happier. All this time, all he'd wanted was to see the worlds with Riku, right? 

The world wasn't even asleep, a collection of islands called Hawaii that reminded them a lot of home. The inhabitants were perfectly happy to meet and feed them, and apparently were undiscovered by the Heartless. The only time Riku drew his keyblade was to lock the world's keyhole to make sure it stayed that way. It was, as Lea would have said, a fluff assignment. 

"See?" Sora said when they were back in the Gummi ship, leaning heavily against Riku's shoulder. "This is gonna be easy! I told you we'd be great at this."

"I somehow doubt every world will be this easy," Riku said dryly, reaching down for the lever to push the seat back from where Sora had dragged it up the whole way. "Would you go sit down? I'm not taking this thing one inch off the ground until you're buckled in."

"Yes, _captain_ ," Sora said, sass so thick that Riku swatted his butt as Sora turned to go. 

It took a lot longer to find the next world. After the excitement of the last place had worn off, sometimes awkward silences stretched out between Sora and Riku. It had been a really long time since they'd been alone together with no one else around to deflect attention to, and both of them had changed and grown a lot in the years since they'd left the Islands. Sometimes Sora wanted to ask if Riku felt that awkwardness too, but he didn't want Riku to think Sora was regretting coming along, so he swallowed that and filled in the silences as best he could with stories or questions. 

After two weeks they stopped taking the same sleep shift some of the time, reasoning that they could search faster if at least one of them was awake most of the time. Sora missed Riku's size and warmth filling up the small bunk during the shifts he slept alone, but he didn't bring that up either, agreeing that the faster they found someplace to land and got out of the ship for a while, the better. 

By the third week, Sora was absolutely going up the walls. The ship seemed twice as small as it had when they started, their Gummi phones' reception was too spotty this far out for him to even call Kairi to complain, even if there were a place on the ship far enough away for Riku not to hear him doing that. Sora's flying became somewhat erratic because of his restlessness, leading to Riku driving more and more, and consequently being tireder and more snappish. 

The silences were still awkward, but Sora stopped trying to fill them in as often, because being quiet was easier than having to apologize so much. 

When a new world finally appeared on the scanners, Sora barely felt any excitement, just relief.

It was dusk when Riku set the ship down in what seemed to be an empty field, dark falling too soon to look around much farther than a few hundred yards. Sora talked Riku into putting a tent up for the night, feeling like he'd go crazy if he had to sleep on the ship one more night in a row. Even stretching his legs on solid ground for an hour brightened Sora's outlook considerably, trotting through the grass to catch a handful of fireflies before circling back to Riku's side to show him. 

"You're cute when you're excited," Riku said, the nicest thing he'd said in days, making Sora beam. Riku lifted Sora's hands up by the wrists and blew gently on his palms to set the fireflies free. "But please don't bring a bunch of bugs into the tent."

"I guess it's fine if the only thing bugging me in there is you," Sora teased, lighthearted. Riku kissed his empty palms and then his forehead. Sora hummed, pleased. "Gosh, I'm soooo tired, it can definitely be bedtime now, right?"

"Why?" Riku dragged his lips down Sora's temple, his cheek, to the warm spot behind Sora's ear that always made him shiver. "Something good happen at bedtime?"

"Rikuuuu," Sora complained, then shrieked laughter when Riku hefted him suddenly up, tossing him over his shoulder like an overloaded backpack, and marched back towards their tent. 

Sunrise woke Sora up while Riku was still dead to the world, snoring loudly. Sora slipped out of bed as quietly as he could, thinking guiltily of all the extra driving time Riku had been shouldering in the last week. Tugging on his hoodie, Sora decided the nicest thing he could do was to go out and see if he could find any ingredients for breakfast, instead of the ration bars they'd eaten a million of already. Sora grabbed his sneakers and tiptoed out of the tent. 

The fresh air felt so good that Sora didn't even care his socks got damp from the grass before he got his sneakers on. Spotting the edge of a forest in the dawn haze, Sora decided that was the most likely place to find something edible and broke into a jog. There could be herbs or mushrooms, or fish if he found a pond, or…

He might have gotten a little bit carried away. Sora realized that the fog hadn't burned off with the sunrise at about the same time as he realized that he might be an eensy bit lost. He'd gotten turned around while zig-zagging between the trees to gather berries, and when he tried to retrace his steps, the dimness of the thick forest made it impossible to tell whether he was making any progress. 

"Shit," he muttered when he passed a tree that he'd already marked by squashing some berries against its trunk. He looked around, then up, wondering if he should climb the tree to try and look around, the knowledge that Riku was going to definitely kill him growing larger and larger in the back of his mind. 

He should call. Sora slid the Gummi phone out of his pocket, but just frowned at it. Even if he called, he couldn't tell Riku where he was, and it wasn't like he needed Riku to come save him like some dumb little kid…Sora dropped his phone back in his pocket and reached for the first branch of the tree instead. He'd call Riku once he had a better idea of where he was. 

Unfortunately, halfway up the tree Sora discovered a new type of Heartless he'd never seen before, all hanging upside-down in the branches to sleep like bruise-purple bats. The first one he bumped into opened one beady, red eye to eye Sora suspiciously. 

"Shhh," Sora said hopefully, noticing more and more purple shapes around him, lining every branch. "I'm just a dream?"

The Heartless shrieked, and dozens of pairs of red eyes snapped open around him. 

Sora scrambled down two or three branches before he missed a grip and went tumbling down the rest of the way. He hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of himself, gasping uselessly while his lungs burned, helpless to do anything but watch as a swarm of Heartless bats made a beeline right for him and man, those claws were awfully big, huh?

"Aero!" Sora managed to croak out at the last second, blowing the Heartless off to the side while he crawled in an awkward scramble around the base of the tree, trying to haul himself up to his feet. In between zapping poorly-aimed Thundara spells over his shoulder, Sora broke into a limping run, trying to put enough distance between himself and his attackers to at least think for a second. Once his head cleared a little, the reflexes he'd learned in Deep Jungle served him well, grabbing low branches and some vines to swing himself further forward. 

He had pulled ahead just enough to lose sight of his attackers, when he stuck his foot right in a little hole and did something awful to his ankle, dumping him to the ground in a tangle. Pain screeched up his leg as he rolled himself over, scraping up his palms. 

"Ow, ow, ow," he muttered, looking anxiously over his shoulder as he fumbled his sneaker off to get a look at his ankle. He could hear the Heartless shrieking at each other, but not see them yet, which might mean he'd confused them enough to lose his trail. His ankle was already swelling up, and Sora grunted in pain as he wrapped both hands around it tight. " _Curaga._ "

Sora shivered as the green glow from his hands sank into his skin, the grinding pain of his sprained or broken ankle replaced with the too-sharp mint coldness of healing magic. It faded after a few tense seconds to the strange hot-cold of a muscle patch, and Sora heaved a sigh of relief. His magic wouldn't replenish for a little bit, though, which meant if the Heartless found them, he couldn't zap anymore of them, and his ankle wouldn't hold him for another fifteen minutes or so, while running was out for even longer than that. 

Sora sighed. He definitely had to call Riku. 

"Sora!" Riku exclaimed as soon as the call connected, worry obvious on his face. Thank goodness their phones always had clear reception to each other if they were on the same world. "What happened to you?! Where are you?!"

"I don't…know," Sora confessed, conscious of the dirt smudged across his face and the leaves stuck in his hair. "I went into the forest and got lost, and I tried to climb a tree to see better but I woke up all these bat things and—" Sora froze as a bat-shriek sounded loudly behind him. 

"Stay right there," Riku said grimly. "I'll use my phone to track yours and be right there."

"O—" Sora cut off as the screen went black.

It only took Riku ten minutes or so to find Sora, who had apparently picked the direction back to camp by blind luck, but that was more than enough time for Sora to work himself into full sad mode over what an idiot he was. 

" _There_ you are," Riku said, Sora flinching at how exasperated he sounded. He dropped to the ground when he noticed Sora's sneaker off and the way Sora was rubbing it. "What happened?"

"Tripped in a hole or something," Sora muttered, feeling heat creeping up his face. He jammed his sneaker back on quickly, ignoring the twinge of phantom pain that caused. "I healed it, it's fine. I can probably stand by now."

"Not so fast," Riku said, putting a hand on Sora's skin and muttering a heal spell of his own. 

"I already did that," Sora protested, irritated by the implication that his spell hadn't been good enough. 

"Can't hurt," Riku responded, not really meeting Sora's eyes as he checked him over for other injuries. Sora would rather be hugged than investigated, but refused mulishly to ask for that. "What were you even doing out here?"

"I just wanted to explore a little." Sora dropped his gaze when Riku frowned. "You were really asleep so I didn't want to wake you."

"I'm sure awake now," Riku sighed, sitting back. "You ran into Heartless?"

"Kinda like Hookbats, but different. More claws." Sora looked back over his shoulder. "I haven't heard them in a few minutes. Maybe they went back to sleep? They were up in the trees."

"Fantastic," Riku muttered, tilting his head back to look at the branches above them. "Think you can stand yet?"

"Yes," Sora said, but when he tried, his ankle still wouldn't hold weight, dumping him right back down. "No."

"I'll go clear out the area a little, then I can come back and carry you," Riku decided, standing up. 

"How are you gonna do that?" Sora snapped, bristling at the idea that he needed carried. "Since you just zeroed out all your magic on a useless Cure spell!"

Expression flat, Riku stuck out his hand, Braveheart appearing. "I'll figure something out." He strode past Sora in the direction Sora had come from, while Sora pulled a face at Riku's back. 

"I'll figure something out," he mimicked meanly, re-tying his shoelace in angry yanks. "Stupid Riku, thinks he can do everything with his stupid giant car keyblade and his stupid muscles…" Sora grabbed for the tree and used mainly arm strength to drag himself up off the ground. Balanced on his good foot, Sora tested his bad ankle gingerly every few breaths, waiting for it to finally bear his weight. 

He tried a little harder when behind him he heard renewed shrieking, some crashing, and then Riku also yelling. He'd just managed to take a few shaky steps when Riku came tearing through the trees, skidding to a stop next to Sora, eyes wide and hair disheveled. 

"Run for it!" he ordered. Sora opened his mouth to ask _how, exactly_ , but Riku grabbed his arm and yanked Sora up onto his back, taking off before Sora even got his arms around Riku's neck securely. Sora dared a look over his shoulder and wished immediately that he hadn't, given the whirlwind of shrieking Heartless hot on their trail. 

"Use Thunder!" Sora yelled in Riku's air, pressing himself flat to Riku's back so Riku's unaimed backwards spells didn't hit him on the way past. "Watch it!" 

"Help out if you've got enough air to yell at me!" Riku snapped back. 

By the time they'd zapped enough of the bats to convince them to give up, they were definitely much more lost than Sora had originally been by himself. Riku set Sora down and slumped down onto a big log, panting. Sora looked around, chewing on his lip as he took in how dark the forest seemed here, densely tangled branches above them barely letting any light in at all. Even climbing or air-stepping up to see better seemed like a lost cause. 

"What'll we do?" Sora asked. 

"Walk," Riku answered, breathlessness making him terse. "A lot." Making a face, Sora plopped down on the log next to Riku. After a second, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of reasonably squashed berries. 

"Want some?" he asked, taking a few to pop in his mouth before holding his hand out to Riku. 

Riku eyed the berries. When he lifted his eyes to meet Sora's, his gaze was sharp. "That's what you were doing out here."

"What?" Sora asked innocently, even as he thought, _shit_. 

" _There might be some ingredients around here_ ," Riku said, the doofy lilt in his imitation of Sora stinging Sora's feelings. "That's right, isn't it?"

"Oh, so what?" Sora said, sticking the rest of the berries into his mouth. If Riku was going to be a jerk, then Sora wasn't going to share. 

"So you know better than to go wandering off on your own in a place we don't know anything about," Riku said. "I was worried about you!"

"I can take care of myself," Sora retorted through his full mouth. "You needed sleep, and we've been eating ration bars for days! I was trying to do something nice!"

"It would have been _nice_ ," Riku snapped, "to wake up and not wonder where the hell my best friend was!"

"Fine, I won't do it again," Sora said icily.

"Good!" 

"Fine!" 

Several minutes of tense silence passed before Riku finally heaved himself off the log. "Let's just go."

Sora trudged behind Riku, keeping his eyes down on the ground to make sure he didn't step in any more holes. It also made it easier to kick moodily at rocks, which he did a fair amount of. Eventually his anger with Riku burnt itself out into frustration with himself, wondering morosely if Riku would be better off exploring on his own. Sora was bound to keep on doing stupid things some of the time, dragging Riku into messes like this because he couldn't stop and think far enough ahead. Adding to his downward spiral, Sora's skin was itchy from drying sweat and he ached in a few places from his fall out of the tree now that his adrenaline was gone. He'd only healed his ankle, after all. He knew he should ask Riku to stop a minute and do something about it, but Sora felt, just a little, like he deserved some bruises and scraped palms for being an idiot. 

He bumped into Riku's back when Riku stopped suddenly. 

"I've seen this tree before," Riku said, voice flat. Sora leaned around him to see it was the tree with the handful of berries smooshed against it. 

Sora laughed; he couldn't help it. Riku gave him a ruffled glare, but Sora didn't explain that he wasn't laughing at Riku so much as himself. "Not as easy as you thought to keep from getting lost in here, is it?" 

"That's real helpful, thank you," Riku said. He started walking again before Sora could retort. 

They figured it out, eventually. Sora gave a weary cheer when they broke out through the edge of the trees and he could see their tent in the distance across the field. There were a few hours of daylight left, but with one glance exchanged Sora and Riku agreed on no more exploring for the day. They took turns showering in the Gummi ship, Sora trudging back out to the tent while Riku was showering to give Riku as much space as he wanted. 

He was mildly surprised when Riku came out to the tent eventually, having expected Riku to stay on the ship awhile, maybe even sleep there. Sora wordlessly handed over yet another of the hated ration bars, along with the last handful of berries. They didn't talk while they ate, although the silence felt less charged than before now that they both had had some time to calm down. Riku occupied himself on his side of the tent by unpacking his backpack to check and reorganize his supplies. With nothing else to do, Sora pulled out his Gummi phone, thinking about seeing if he could get a text message through to Kairi. 

What would he even say about today anyway? Sora looked down at his phone without typing anything, stuck on the fact that the last thing he'd sent Kairi was a video he and Riku had filmed together, playfully trying to shove each other out of the frame while they vied to tell Kairi things first. Making sure his sound was off so that Riku couldn't hear what he was doing, Sora played the video, chest tightening at how close they were squished together in the frame. 

Right now it felt like every inch between them in the tent was a mile. Sneaking a glance across the tent at Riku, Sora wished he knew how to fix that. He should at least say he was sorry, but it was so quiet that breaking the silence felt weirdly impossible. He'd said sorry like a hundred times so far and it hadn't fixed much of anything. 

How dumb, right? Sora thought to himself, looking back down at the phone. He'd thought going on this adventure together would be a way for them to get closer, but it wasn't as easy as just being stuck together in a Gummi ship for hours on end, apparently. How could it possibly be harder to talk to each other when they were in the same room than when they'd existed only in Gummi phone videos and badly focused selfies? 

Actually…that gave Sora an idea. It was kind of silly, but he already felt like a gigantic boob so there wasn't anything to lose. 

The cheerful ringtone of Riku's Gummi phone broke the silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Sora saw Riku reach for the phone without really looking, then double-take at the display. He answered the call, and Riku appeared on the screen of Sora's Gummi phone, looking adorably confused. "Sora?"

"Hi, Riku!" Sora said, offering the best smile he could dig up. "Got some time to talk?"

"We're…in the same tent," Riku said, looking across the space to Sora. Sora studiously kept his eyes down on his phone. 

"Great! I have a bunch of stuff to tell you," Sora said as if Riku had answered his question positively, imitating how the start of their conversations usually flowed. "We found a new world today. Wanna hear about it?"

"Sure," Riku said, slowly relaxing into the pretend telephone call. He was still sneaking glances over at Sora, but Sora ignored it. "Of course I do."

"It seems really pretty, but anyplace would seem great after weeks on the Gummi ship. I thought I was going to crazy the last few days!" Sora made a face. "We didn't see much of it yet, but that's my fault. I got lost in the forest all morning."

"What happened?" Riku asked. 

"I went in by myself because I thought I'd just be a minute. I got chased by a bunch of Heartless, then stuck my foot in a hole and broke my dumb ankle. I felt so stupid, stuck there waiting to be rescued like a helpless idiot."

"That sounds awful," Riku said, expression softening. "You're ok now, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." Sora let the exaggerated expression slide off his face, letting his exhaustion and frustration show instead. "My ankle doesn't hurt. But I still feel stupid. Riku had to come save me and I picked a big fight with him. I wasn't mad at him, mostly, I was just mad I had to be saved at all."

"Mostly?" Riku prompted. 

"Well…he does this thing." Sora had to drop his gaze to keep going. "I said I healed my ankle myself, and he did it again anyway. Like he didn't even listen to what I said. It's harmless, but I already felt useless, so it made me feel even worse."

"Yeah, that guy. He can be kind of overprotective." Riku sighed, like he was talking about dealing with somebody irritating, and Sora had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. "What should he have done instead?"

"A hug would have been nice," Sora said. "Maybe saying he was glad to find me."

"I did so—" Riku cut himself off, wincing as realization hit home. "No, I didn't. That guy's a pretty big jerk, huh?"

"Only sometimes. But I still like him. And I was a jerk first." Sora drew up his knees and rested his chin on them. "Tell me about your day?"

"Well…I got to sleep in late, and I really needed that. But then I woke up alone." Riku paused before adding, very quietly, "I hate that feeling."

Sora blinked. "You do?"

"Yeah. There's a couple seconds, if I've been asleep really deeply, where I'm not sure where I am. Sometimes I can't move or open my eyes right away, and it's like I'm stuck back in the in-between before I woke up in Castle Oblivion, or when Ansem had control of my body. But if I can feel Sora against me, warm and breathing, I know I'm not back there, that I'm ok." Riku offered a wan smile that just about broke Sora's heart. "When I wake up alone, sometimes I panic. And this morning my boyfriend was missing when he should have been right there, so I really panicked. By the time I found him, I could barely think straight, so I said and did a bunch of dumb stuff. I think he's really mad at me, because he's been giving me the silent treatment all afternoon."

"Bet he's not that mad," Sora said. He tried to smile back, but it wouldn't stick. "Just embarrassed."

"You think?" Riku asked. Sora hummed a yes. "I don't think he's having a very good time with me so far. Any suggestions?"

"Probably not a romantic walk in the woods," Sora said, making Riku bark a sudden laugh. Sora smiled against his knees, glad to hear that sound again. "He sounds like a dumbass. Are you sorry you brought him along?"

"He's the only person I'd ever want to be stuck on a Gummi ship for weeks with," Riku said, affectionate tone making Sora's cheeks go warm. "Anybody else would have murdered me a week and a half ago and said a Heartless ate me."

"Not the King!" Sora protested. 

"Especially the King." Riku shook his head, making a grim face. "Last time we spent a week together, he threatened to send me on a one-way Star Shard trip to Deep Space without a helmet."

"He did not!" Sora giggled helplessly. "Riku!" 

"He thought about it. I saw it in his eyes." Riku shook his head. "Hey, it's getting late. You should go to bed soon, sounds like you had a rough day."

"Awwww," Sora pouted, the same way as he did any time Riku tried to end a phone call. "Don't go yet. I missed talking to you."

"Sora…" Riku's voice seemed to get stuck a second. "I did too. You can call me anytime you want, ok? As often as you want."

"Promise? Even if it's about something stupid?" Sora asked. Riku nodded seriously. "Even if I'm sitting two feet away from you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, anything. Get plenty of rest. I love you."

"Love you, too. Bye!" Sora bit his lip as the call cut off and his phone reloaded his home screen. When he looked up, his eyes caught Riku's and held, staring at each other. 

"Sorry," both of them said at the same time. Riku held out an arm and Sora scrambled across the space between them faster than Riku could blink, crawling into Riku's lap for a breathlessly tight hug. 

"I didn't know that, about when you wake up," Sora said, arms curling around Riku's neck. His heart ached at the thought that they'd woken up more mornings together in the last month than probably the whole year before that. 

"I didn't exactly tell you. I haven't told anyone," Riku admitted, lips against Sora's temple. "You know I don't ever think you're useless, right? Never ever."

"I know, but _I_ think it sometimes." Sora straightened up just enough for him and Riku to look at each other. "Can I tell you something else?"

"Like what's been bothering you lately?" Riku asked. Sora nodded. "Please."

Sora took a deep breath. "This is harder than I thought. Being together so much, just us. When we were kids we spent like every minute together and it never felt hard like this. What's that about?"

"I guess…" Riku said slowly, thinking. "We just grew up a lot, and we got too good at being on our own. And we fought all the time when we were kids, don't you remember? You'd tell me you hated me forever, I'd call you a baby, and then we'd forget all about it the next day." Riku leaned his forehead against Sora's, brushing the tips of their noses together. "That was a good idea, using the phones. What made you think of that?"

"When we're apart and I feel bad, calling you and telling you about it always made me feel better," Sora said. "I just wanted to tell you that I felt bad without you trying to fix everything. When you're on the phone, you can't really do anything besides listen to me."

"That's true," Riku agreed. "I felt a lot better after you let me retell my side of the story. I felt like you really heard me. We told each other about bad days on the phone a lot, huh?"

"Yeah. But now that I think about it, that was hard at the beginning too, telling you how I really felt instead of just saying everything was fine so that you wouldn't worry. We used to have a lot of awkward silence on the phone, at first. I guess we were apart so much the last year we practiced until we got good at it." Sora chewed his lower lip. "Do you think this will be like that? Easier if we practice?"

"Yes," Riku agreed, putting his thumb on Sora's lip to pull it out from his teeth. "I think we'll just have to get used to each other again. Be more honest when we need a break."

"I'm still gonna do stupid stuff, though," Sora sighed, downcast. "And you're still gonna try to fix everything."

"For sure." Riku stroked his thumb up Sora's cheek. "We're still us. But even when we fight, don't hate me forever, ok? Because I don't want anyone else, and definitely nobody else will put up with me."

"Shut up with that," Sora ordered, sliding hands into Riku's hair and tilting his head down for a kiss. "You're the strongest, best-looking catch on our Islands. I had to kick you off-world just so I wouldn't be beating better dating prospects off you with a stick."

"That is definitely not how I remember it," Riku laughed against Sora's mouth. "Hey. Wanna make up yet?"

"We just did," Sora said, distracted by the slide of Riku's damp hair through his fingers. 

"No, coconut brain. The naked making up."

"Oh! Ohhh." Sora slid off Riku's lap, already reaching for the hem of his T-shirt, grinning. "Wait, it's hotter when I'm still a little mad. Say one of those things where you know you're being a dick."

Riku rolled his eyes. "I do not—"

"Did you really think that through, Sora?" Sora lowered his voice, doing a nasal, know-it-all impression of Riku during a sparring lesson. "And that stance, what are you doing? Too much weight's on your back foot, you're unbalanced—"

"I'll show you being a dick, all right," Riku growled, launching himself at Sora and knocking him flat on his back, Sora shrieking in glee.

In the morning, Sora woke up a little stiff, a little sticky, and with a mouthful of Riku's hair. Sora was plastered tightly against Riku's back, and as consciousness seeped in slowly, he realized Riku was twitching against him. Riku was muttering something, or making soft noises at least, muffled against the arm that was thrown over his face. 

"Hey," Sora said, shaking Riku's shoulder, trying to wake him up gently. Not for the first time, Sora wished he could drop into Riku's dreams the way that Riku did for him, instead of having to settle for waking him up. Riku woke with a sudden catch of his breath, tense for a long second before relaxing back back against Sora. "You ok? You were dreaming."

"Mm." Riku scrunched down deeper into the blanket they were sharing. "Uh-huh. You getting up?"

"Not yet," Sora decided. He probably wouldn't go back to sleep, but it felt nice just to be here, Riku's back shifting against Sora's chest with every breath. 

"Stay," Riku murmured, sounding mostly back asleep already. Sora tucked himself in tighter against Riku, hips snug to Riku's butt, arm over his waist, nose against his spine. 

"I'm here. I got you."


End file.
